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Fermentation Atlas

Fermented milk from Iceland

Skyrskyr

Skyr is Icelandic skim milk heated near boiling, set warm with a spoon of old skyr and a little rennet, then cooled slowly and strained in cloth. Yoghurt bacteria sour it, and on farms yeasts add a fermented note. The result is a very thick, sour, high-protein curd at pH 3.7–4.3. Made in 6 steps over 31 h – 32 h. The longest step, strain through cloth, takes 24 h (Valsdóttir Þ 2011). Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 hReported[matis2011]Strain through cloth
Temperature90 °CReported[matis2011]Heat the skim milk
AciditypH 3.7–4.3Measured[matis2011]Strain through cloth

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceEach farm batch in the Matís 2011 study made about 2 litres of skyr; one KEA dairy batch made 500 kg. Neither gives a rennet dose.
Fresh milk from the farm's cows, skimmed · One farm in the study used whole milk, which gave a denser skyr[matis2011]
About 1 tablespoonOld skyr (skyrþéttir) as starter · Thinned with a little of the warm milk before it goes in[matis2011]
Rennet · A little, added with the old skyr; the report gives no dose[matis2011]
Starterbackslop plus rennet

Total time across the recorded steps: 31 h – 32 h

Start
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What changes: The cream is separated off, leaving skim milk

Step 1 of 6
Skim the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
S. thermophilus
L. delbrueckii
Kluyveromyces
Saccharomyces

Output: skim milk, with the cream kept for butter.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

Skyr is set like yoghurt with the same two thermophilic bacteria, but a little rennet goes in and the curd is strained to a thick mass. Most cheeses in its fresh lactic family set cool with mesophilic cultures; skyr sets at about 40 °C, and farm skyr carries yeasts from its old-skyr starter.

Milk
Skim cow milk in dairies; farms use skim or whole milk
Ripening
Fresh; eaten soon after straining

Related ferments

Variants

  • Dairy skyr from pure cultures (MS Selfoss)No old skyr; a fresh pure culture each time, overnight souring and whey removal by membrane filtration. It is thinner, glossier, smoother and whiter than farm skyr.
  • Whole-milk farm skyrMade from unskimmed milk; denser (23.9 % dry matter), darker and less glossy than skim skyr.
  • Norwegian skjørA related Norwegian sour-milk curd, usually made without rennet.

Safety

Skyr is heated near boiling and soured to pH 3.7–4.3. Matís found no moulds in farm or dairy skyr. For strained dairy products, BC food-safety guidance says to strain under refrigeration and to store at 4 °C or colder.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Skyr is named in medieval Icelandic sagas such as Egils saga, though the old method is not known. Sigurður Pétursson studied farm skyr bacteria in the 1930s and Sævar Magnússon studied dairy skyr yeasts in 1967 (Matís 2011).

  1. [matis2011] Valsdóttir Þ., Reynisson E., Knocke N., Ólafsdóttir A., Sveinsson Þ.E. 2011, Hefðbundið skyr (Traditional skyr, homemade and industrial compared), Matís report 09-11paper
  2. [tp] Tetra Pak, Dairy Processing Handbook, chapter 13 Fermented milk products (concentrated yoghurt, including skyr)book
  3. [bc-yogurt] FOODSAFE BC with the BC Ministry of Health, BCCDC and Fraser Health, Guidelines for the Production of Dairy Products in Food Establishments, Yogurt sample documentation, September 2022gov
  4. [wp] Wikipedia, Skyr (history and Norwegian skjør only)wiki